


Schrodinger's Fairy

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Brotp, Fantasy, Other, taemplants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-22 01:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10687326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: a fic about executive dysfunction and also about whether or not taemin is a fairy“Fresh air,” Jonghyun says blandly, trying to think up something good about being outside all day. Taemin chuckles softly, nodding.“Gotta get that photosynthesis,” they say, wiggling their fingers at the sun.tumblr





	Schrodinger's Fairy

With a final nudge of his decorations box under the coffee table, Jonghyun is officially moved into his new apartment. He smiles at all of his simple things, his knockoff couch, his cheap shelf, his cute pink mini fridge in the kitchen, the unproportionally large and fancy tv that he won in a raffle last month. Nice. Next weekend Jinki is going to come over to help him put up his posters and curtains and all of the extra stuff and then it’ll be extra nice. **  
**

He wanders over to his big side window, licking his thumb and rubbing a smudge of dirt off of the glass. He loves the view he has of the city. Across the street is another apartment complex with a cute grassy garden area out front, and in the distance he can see where it turns from small suburbs to big skyscrapers, all lit up against the darkening sky. He loves being close without actually being in the middle of a big city.

He could push his window door open and have a sit out on his cute little balcony, but it’s kind of late. He doesn’t like being outside when it’s dark and scary. He’ll go in the morning, maybe, dust everything off and set up his big umbrella so he can try to enjoy being there without melting. For now, he just stares outside, taking in the last moments of the sunset to the right. A slight shimmer in the air makes him hum low in his throat.

That was definitely a magic shimmer. He’d seen them around when he was viewing this apartment, when he was exploring the surrounding area a little bit to see if he’d like to live here. Faint glimmers, slight sparkles, just the tiniest ripples of magic everywhere in the air. A person here or there that looked just a little bit ethereal. It’s nothing new; Jonghyun’s old town was bursting with magic, color everywhere and cheap illusions being sold on corner stores.

Compared to there, though, this place seems so... subtle. Jonghyun isn’t used to magic that isn’t bursting out at him. The realtors said that this town had a pretty average ratio of magic to mundane, but it just… feels different from everywhere else Jonghyun has been. He can’t put his finger on it. It’s like the magic here is soft and whispered, easygoing, mellow, smooth, just a hint that he can barely catch on to. He’s pretty sure that the only reason he did notice it is because he’s so used to magic already that he recognizes the signs.

When the streetlamps outside turn on is when Jonghyun finally steps away from his window. He’s kind of hungry. He thinks he’s gonna make a quick snack and then head to bed, and leave the pondering about the quiet magic of this town for his dreams.

~

The next morning, he has a quick cereal breakfast and blends himself a smoothie to take outside with him. It shouldn’t be too difficult, he thinks, to clean up the balcony out there. A little sweeping, a little scrubbing maybe, a little fiddling with his big umbrella to get it to stay in a good spot. No big deal. As long as he doesn’t sweep anything off onto someone walking on the sidewalk below.

He sets his smoothie down on the railing, leans his umbrella against the wall, picks up his broom, and then jumps when he realizes he’s being watched from the next balcony.

“Oh,” he says loudly, and then “oh” again, softer, breathed out in a soft chuckle. “Hi,” he tells the person sitting outside, clinging to his broom with both hands just to have them doing something.

“Hey,” his right side neighbor says, looking just as amused at Jonghyun being startled as anyone would be. They’re pretty: long bright red hair, soft face, warm brown eyes, a golden tan. The lounge chair under them looks like it’s nothing but pillows and the laptop in their lap has cute flower stickers around the border, and their balcony railing is full of vines and leaves. The same slight shimmers of magic that Jonghyun has seen around the rest of the city also hang around those plants. “I’m Taemin,” his neighbor says, drawing his attention back to them with a little wave. “They or he. Pronouns, I mean. You can use them interchangeably.” They shrug and Jonghyun blinks, then nods. Oh. Good. He always likes not having to detective someone’s pronouns out of them.

“I’m Jonghyun,” he says, smiling a little wider as his name leaves his lips. “Just he,” he adds. Sometimes none, but those days are usually days where he’s wallowing in self-pity, so. He doesn’t think Taemin needs to know about that. Taemin nods back easily and rubs his thumb over the spacebar of his laptop.

“You’re the new neighbor?” They ask. “I meant to go say hi to you yesterday, but then I kind of just. Didn’t.” They shrug like it couldn’t be helped and Jonghyun shrugs back. He feels that.

“Yeah,” he says. “This place is really cute.” He gestures around their balconies, at the street down below. “I like it,” he says. Taemin glances out as well and turns back with a smile.

“Same,” he says. He taps his thumb on his keyboard slowly; there’s something almost ethereal and exceptionally gorgeous about his smile, but that might just be because Jonghyun is weak for a pretty face. Looking passed Taemin’s beauty, he can see that their smile is kind of forced. He grins himself at it. Low spoons. Alright then.

“Anyway,” he says, tapping his broom on the floor. “I’m gonna get back to cleaning up.” He’ll back out of the conversation before the awkward silence so Taemin’s introverted ass doesn’t have to do it themself. This time Taemin’s smile is largely relief and they give Jonghyun a little finger pistol before turning back to their laptop. Jonghyun sets back to his work, glancing up at him only a few times as he does so. He likes them already.

~

The sun is garbage, honestly. Well, no. Just during summer, and near the end of spring when it starts getting ready for summer. Jonghyun sighs as he lies on his stomach on his couch, staring listlessly out of his side window. His second week in this apartment and already his seasonal depression is making him too tired to want to go outside. It’s so… hot out there. Hot and warm and gross. It’s barely even ten. He wants autumn to happen already so he can be chilly and peppy and happy.

A gentle breeze rustles the big umbrella he fixed up yesterday and he sighs, pushing himself up with weak arms. He needs to go out there. Needs that vitamin D before he gets all pale and faint again like he spent the passed three years dealing with. Twenty minutes a day in the sun, three times a day, doctor’s orders. No more ignoring it. He can do that. A couple videos on his laptop and he’ll be back inside before he knows it. He’ll have to go out again twice later during the day, but whatever. He’ll deal with that when it happens. He wants to start fresh with everything in his new place, and that includes half melting in the sun like a sad little lump.

Squeezing himself through the sliding glass door with his laptop and water bottle in his arms, the first thing that he notices is that Taemin is already out on his own balcony. He smiles at them when he settles himself in his little foldout chair, balancing his laptop in his lap and kind of just putting his water bottle on the floor. He needs a little table or something.

“Morning,” he says as he waits for his laptop to start up.

“Hi,” Taemin says back, and then “um,” which keeps Jonghyun from looking back to his laptop. He tilts his head in question instead, waiting for Taemin to follow up with that. “Uh, one sec,” Taemin says. They hold up a finger and lift their laptop to a stool in front of him. “I got you something,” he mumbles, leaning over the side of his chair. Jonghyun blinks.

“Really?” he asks, even as Taemin picks something up from the ground and sits back up straight with a noise of effort.

“Yeah,” they say, holding it up with a bright smile. It’s two things; two little flowerpots. One has small bunches of very light purple flowers and the other has three big pink flowers, and Taemin leans over his balcony to hand both of them to Jonghyun. Jonghyun takes them, mildly confused but extremely flattered, and brings the smaller ones up to sniff. Magic shimmers very faintly around their petals, the same kind that hovers around Taemin’s balcony vines, the same kind that float around the bushes that surround the ground floor of the apartments. Jonghyun thinks he’s starting to get used to the subtleness of it all.

“Wow,”  he says, smiling down at both of them. They’re so cute. “I mean, thanks,” he says, looking back up to Taemin. Taemin rubs his nose with a sheepish little shrug, plush lips spread wide in a beautiful smile.

“The purple ones are mayflowers,” they say, pointing. “And they mean welcome. And the others are zinnias, and they mean, like, long lasting affection.” He reaches over and boops one of the big flowers with a fond look. “So, like,” he says. “Welcome to your new home, and I hope you like it while you’re here.” Their smile is sincere and earnest, their words simple. Jonghyun smiles back at him, smiles down at his new flowers, feels incredibly happy that he decided to actually come outside today.

“Thank you, again,” he says, gently poking the leaves of his mayflowers. They’re soft and lovely.

“Mmhmm,” Taemin hums. “I was gonna make you a bouquet, to, like, say all of that more specifically, but I figured these would last longer.”

“Can you say all of that with more flowers?” Jonghyun asks. It seems improbable. He knows that yellow roses mean friendship and either pink or red roses mean romantic love, but that’s about it. Taemin nods though, shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“You can say a lot with flowers,” he says. “It’s easy when you speak the language.”

“Flower language?” Jonghyun asks, cocking a brow and grinning when Taemin nods. That’s cute. Maybe he’ll look up more flower stuff later and try to figure out what a full welcome bouquet would actually look like. For now, he places his two cute new plant friends on the ground next to him, thanks Taemin again, and googles how to care for them.

~

The internet told him to keep the mayflowers inside and keep the zinnias frequently watered in full sunlight, so he takes that as good enough of a reason to drag his tired butt outside three times a day. If he can’t do it for himself, at least he can do it for the flowers.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway, as he sips the water meant for the zinnias out of the glass and stares outside. It’s almost sunset. Super late. They won’t get all dried out. Probably. They’ll be fine. And if they really _needed_ to be watered, he’s sure that Taemin would help him kind of pep them back up to life in the morning.

“Holy fuck,” he sighs at himself, shaking his head. No. He can’t be _that_ garbage about it. It’s literally only the first day; he can’t let them die so soon and expect his new neighbor to fix his mistakes. He can’t be some asshole that expects a babe to do all of his work for him. He can go out there again. He believes in himself.

He drinks half the glass of water, fills it back up, and bravely heads outside, hesitating only a little bit at the door before pushing it open. He’s already come this far; might as well go all the way.

Outside, the sun is in that weird place of making him sweaty warm but not strong enough to stop the chills from the slow breeze that shuffles his clothes. He grimaces, but shuffles out and crouches down near his little flowerpot anyway, tipping the glass into it until the soil looks reasonably damp. It looks like more of the magic that floats through the air in this city has decided to cling to her leaves and he wiggles his fingers in it absent-mindedly for a moment. Cute.

His back twinges at him as he stands up straight again. He needs to get a little table to put these flowers on. And maybe he should start working on his posture, but that’s less simple. Cheaper, though. Hmm.

“Hi again.”

“Hmm?” Jonghyun looks up; Taemin looks back at him, fingers hovering over their laptop but smile warm. Jonghyun finds himself giving them a small, tired smile back. “Hey,” he says, taking another sip of water and slumping into his chair. “Back outside to watch the sunset?” he asks, gesturing at the horizon. Taemin’s smile grows a little wider.

“I’ve been out here pretty much all day, actually,” he says.

“Oh,” Jonghyun says, taken aback. He can’t imagine that. It’s been so bright and warm and gross this whole time. “Well, I mean,” he says, reminding himself that other people don’t literally get their depression through the weather. “Fresh air,” he says blandly, trying to think up something good about being outside all day. Taemin chuckles softly, nodding.

“Gotta get that photosynthesis,” they say, wiggling their fingers at the sun. Jonghyun exhales in amusement, eyes flicking to his little zinnias on the floor. Good point. Technically that’s what he’s out here for also, even if his sun absorption is marginally less. At least he can be confident that Taemin will never run out of his sun vitamins. He falls back into his lounge chair and closes his eyes, letting the sun warm his lids and not going back inside until it fully disappears behind the horizon. Taemin stretches and gets up then too, giving Jonghyun a quick, gorgeous smile as he cradles his laptop in his arms and slips inside.

~

Jonghyun thinks he’s starting to get tired of his own body’s whining. He leans back in his kitchen chair, slouched halfway down and staring blandly at the little ceiling lamp. She has faded glow in the dark star stickers on her from Jinki that he smiles at, but soon he sighs again, turning his head to where he can just see his balcony from the kitchen doorway.

It’s been like, four days. It’s Thursday. And every day, three times a day, without fail, he has this same shitty argument with himself. He yawns wide into his empty home and blinks blearily outside, trying to will himself to just get up and go out there.

He gets up and washes his cereal bowl instead. That’s not exactly a bad thing, but he’s still annoyed with himself as he dries it and puts it away. If he’s gonna have to force himself to do this every morning he’s gonna start having a real problem with himself. It’s fucking wild to him how he was able to clean up his whole balcony the other day with no problem but now that he’s literally just trying to sit down for twenty minutes it’s so difficult. Doing nothing shouldn’t be this hard.

“Just,” he whispers to himself. “Just. Just do it, just--just _go_ out there, just-- _do_ the fucking thing.” He really needs to get something to give himself actual incentive to go out there. He _is_ gonna go out and buy a little table during the weekend; maybe he’ll also go bug Jinki for some free old clay from his pottery store. He can’t do that sculpting shit _inside._ He can leave it outside and do a little fussing with it every day. He’ll make himself a cute ceramic puppy. Yeah.

WIth a grimace and a heavy sigh, he grabs his laptop off of the kitchen table and slumps outside with it, squinting against the warm morning sun. He falls down heavily in his chair, muffling another yawn into his hand and clumsily opening his laptop. Honestly with the wifi here it’ll probably be time to go back in by the time it gets all started up and ready to go.

“Morning,” Taemin’s voice says from the other balcony. Jonghyun glances up, somehow just as surprised to see him there as he’s been all week, and nods with the smallest little smile.

“Hi,” he mumbles. A breeze flows passed Taemin’s balcony and over his and he shivers lightly, wishing he had a blanket out here to keep him warm. He pouts at the little sparkles of magic that flow by his balcony as well. He also wishes that he was able to control the little currents of wayward magic in his life. He’d pull them all over and be at the perfect temperature all the time.

“Sleepy still?” Taemin asks, and Jonghyun glances at them again. He’s got a sympathetic smile on his lips and Jonghyun chuckles softly, nodding. Yeah, they could say that.

“Bad morning,” he shrugs. “Depression. Executive dysfunction. Couldn’t sleep. The usual.” Or, almost the usual. He barely slept at all last night and that’s honestly what’s fucking him up the most.

“Oh,” Taemin says. “Was that you playing the guitar at, like, three in the morning?” they ask. A curious smile tugs their lips up but Jonghyun still blushes, curling his fingers self-consciously into the collar of his shirt. Heck.

“Uh, yeah, um,” he says. “Sorry, did I wake you up?” he asks. “Was I too loud?” He thought he was, damn it, but he kept playing anyway. He wanted to really get down the melody for one of the songs he’s working on but now apparently he’s _that_ asshole. He hasn’t even met the rest of his neighbors yet. Fuck.

“Oh, no no,” Taemin says quickly. He reaches over to let his arm dangle over the edge of their balcony. “You were really quiet but I was just up already anyway,” he says. “I don’t really sleep a lot.” They shrug; Jonghyun blinks at them for a second before breathing a heavy sigh of relief. A small chuckle falls out of his lips with it.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Good.” Super good. He’s glad he didn’t wake anyone up. “I have insomnia too,” he says, sliding his hand from his collar to the back of his neck. It’s nice to meet someone else like him. “Usually I try to stay in bed but sometimes I just _know_ that sleep isn’t going to happen, you know?” He shrugs lightly and Taemin nods back.

“Well,” they say. “I really liked listening to you play.” His smile is warm, and as another breeze blows both air and magic into Jonghyun’s space, he feels warm too.

~

By the beginning of his third week in his new home, Jonghyun has come to the realization that with an hour every day of just sitting in the sun and doing nothing, he has a lot more time to just think about things. His life, his music, his puppy still living with his sister for now… usually things that he understands, that he can figure out at least a little bit. There are some things, though, that he admittedly is having a little trouble with.

Or, no. Not some things. One thing. And by thing, he means person. And by person, he means Taemin.

Jonghyun is, like, at least seventy percent convinced that Taemin is a fairy. He knows that it’s ridiculous; he would _know_ by now. Taemin would have told him, or it would be, like, glaringly obvious. Fairies aren’t exactly secretive. They just. Exist. Blatantly. As fairies. As everyone else exists in their own ways.

Maybe it _is_ glaringly obvious, though. Maybe it is and Jonghyun just isn’t putting it all together because Taemin is just existing as a fairy much more subtly than what Jonghyun is used to. Maybe _he’s_ just an obnoxious city babe that expects every magic thing to present itself to him without question.

Or maybe it’s not obvious at all because it’s not true and Jonghyun is just overthinking something because that’s all he can do when he’s outside, on his balcony, and avoiding doing any actual work on his laptop.

He watches Taemin quietly out of the corner of his eye, thumb rubbing over the touchpad of his laptop as Taemin’s thumb rubs innocently over their own. He’s beautiful absolutely fucking gorgeous, with the softest and brightest red hair Jonghyun has ever seen. Whenever he smiles with those plush lips and their cheeks round up and his eyes turn into little crescents, Jonghyun feels like his breath leaves him and that Taemin’s beauty can’t be anything _but_ supernatural. Their dark brown eyes draw Jonghyun in and make him smile back every time, make him want to lean closer just so he can see them twinkle in the setting sunlight.

And speaking of sunlight, he’s starting to get really, really, _really_ suspicious of that whole “photosynthesis” comment Taemin made the other day. They can’t. They can’t _possibly_ convert light energy from the sun into chemical energy to fuel their body. That’s just. Impossible. Or. Improbable.

Because also, Taemin _did_ say that he didn’t really sleep much. Maybe he doesn’t really sleep at all. Because they don’t need to. Because he gets all of his energy from the sun. Through photosynthesis.

Jonghyun bites his lip and quickly opens a new tab to google how photosynthesis actually works for the third time. Sunlight energy… carbon dioxide… water molecules (Jonghyun’s eyes flick to the water bottle Taemin has sitting in his chair’s cup holder)... chlorophyll…. Chlorophyll. Hmm. That’s green, he thinks. That _has_ to be green to do the whole energy conversion thing.

At least, Jonghyun thinks it does. Maybe there are some plants out there that _aren’t_ green but do just fine. And maybe plant fairies don’t photosynthesize the way real plants do.

Taemin might not even be a plant fairy; maybe he’s an earth fairy, or a nature fairy, or any other kind of fairy. Maybe he’s not a fairy and is actually a witch instead. Their balcony plants do shimmer and Jonghyun vaguely remembers that fairy magic was more sparkly than shimmery. But then, he doesn’t think witches can do spells that let them speak to plants. That’s definitely a fairy thing. Either way, Taemin’s flower language thing is definitely not mundane.

Or, alternatively, instead of all of this, Taemin is just a pretty babe that loves plants. Maybe he’s just exactly Jonghyun’s type and that’s why Jonghyun thinks he’s so gorgeous. And maybe they’ve researched the meanings of lots of flowers because he thinks it’s fun. Maybe he just likes making shitty plant jokes because they’re a good egg with a pure sense of humor.

Jonghyun sighs quietly, rubbing his palms into his eyes. He really shouldn’t be getting so deep into his new neighbor’s life. He just met the babe, like, less than a month ago. He’s sure it’s common courtesy to at least wait a year before snooping in their business. Lowering his hand down to smother a yawn, he takes his eyes from the sunset to glance at Taemin again. They look normal, average, nothing magical at all. Sleepy bags under his eyes, acne scars on his cheeks, a slight oiliness to his hair that suggests he’s skipped a shower or two. A simple suburban balcony gardener, with plants that only carry magic that drifts to them from elsewhere in the city.

Looking back to the sun, he notes blandly that it’s almost all the way gone. Almost time for him to head back in. He fluffs up his hair, fixes his bangs, straightens his jacket over his shoulders. He has dinner to start making inside. He closes his laptop gently, lifting it up to the cheap little table he bought the other day. Taemin is getting up too; Jonghyun watches them stretch, stand up, and pull a blanket over his shoulders like a cape.

It flutters their hair by their cheeks and he lifts a hand to tuck the stray strands behind his ear. Behind them, the gentle oranges and reds of the sunset almost blend in with their hair, the light shining through and casting a faint glow around every little frizz. They tuck their water bottle into the pocket of their hoodie, grab their laptop, and look up to give Jonghyun a quick smile.

“Night,” he says, voice warm and friendly, mouth curved up more on his right side than his left, skin just tinted the faintest gold from the glow of the sun. Jonghyun feels his breath leave his lungs and the words that come with it are entirely involuntary.

“Are you a fairy?” he blurts, loudly and quickly and with an embarrassing voice crack at the end. Taemin just looks at him, one hand on his sliding glass door, and Jonghyun looks back, heat rising into his cheeks as his fingers curl nervously into his sleeves. Fuck. _Fuck._ He fucked up. What the fuck is wrong with him.

On the other balcony, Taemin’s lips curve up again into a soft, quiet chuckle. He looks down, rubs his nose, looks back up and brushes their bangs out of their face with the widest, most gorgeous smile.

“I can see why you would think that,” he says. Pushing his door open, he slips easily inside and closes it behind him. Jonghyun stares at the door, mouth open with words he didn’t get to say, for a long, confused time. The sun sets completely in front of him before he slowly gathers his stuff and goes to bed.

At least he has some real motivation to go outside tomorrow.


End file.
